Toyota Wants A Robot To Ride Shotgun With You

Toyota Kirobo Mini (Credit: Toyota)

Toyota wants consumers to remember it’s an innovator, not just a manufacturer of boring mass-market cars. To once again establish itself as a leader in the industry, the automaker has created a robot which can ride shotgun and keep you company on long drives.

That’s an innovation not even Tesla has addressed. It’s one thing to build a robot car, and another to build a robot to ride in your car.

The Kirobo Mini will be offered in the Japanese market next year. It’s only four inches tall, so it can fit in a cupholder, bag or even a person’s hand. But that’s not the coolest feature.

This little robot is actually pretty smart, using some advanced artificial intelligence that was first tested out for 18 months on the International Space Station. Kirobo Mini can have conversations with owners. It uses a camera to actually read expressions on people’s faces, changing its tone of voice and gestures to match. Over time, the robot learns what you like and hate, plus it remembers things that happened in the past.

Kirobo Mini also connects to cars and home devices through a smartphone app. That way, the robot can sense when trips have been long, or that you just arrived at home.

Will this make people love their cars and think of Toyota as a technology leader?